Stephan Livera Podcast

Most crypto exchanges are built like casinos: they chase the next hot token, prediction market, or trading product. Relai is building a different category—a savings brand for people who want to accumulate Bitcoin, hold it in self-custody, and build wealth over the long run. Julian Liniger explains why serving patient savers requires a different product, message, and business model.
The conversation also explores why rising living costs are pushing Europeans to rethink ordinary savings, and why the temptation to get rich quickly can drive people toward momentum trading and leverage. Julian makes the case for a longer time horizon: Bitcoin savings is less about chasing the next move and more about consistently building a position through changing market conditions.
Supporting context includes Relai's MiCA compliance journey, where regulatory overhead is costly but can also raise the bar for smaller competitors. Julian also discusses the company's self-custody model and reports more than 100,000 users holding over 20,000 BTC in their own wallets—not under Relai management. The episode covers how a Bitcoin-only company can earn revenue through services around long-term ownership while keeping the savings proposition at the center.
Timestamps:
00:01 — Europe's Cost of Living Squeeze
03:11 — Why Europeans Still Don't Get Bitcoin
07:37 — High Time Preference & Get-Rich-Quick
10:31 — Bitcoin Needs Patience Again
10:54 — AI Hype vs Bitcoin as Savings
14:58 — Bitcoin Is Where You Keep Your Winnings
21:42 — Leverage, Treasury Cos & Risk
23:46 — Relai Private Loans in Europe
29:03 — MiCA: Overhead and Moat
33:11 — Bitcoin Savings vs Casino Exchanges
35:26 — 100k Users, 20k+ BTC Self-Custody
37:49 — Retail App vs Relai Private
40:00 — Self-Custody Phone Wallet
42:58 — Seven-Figure Raise in a Bear Market
45:12 — AI for Building and Securing Relai
50:00 — Living Costs Drive Bitcoin Search
Links: 
https://x.com/julian_liniger

https://x.com/relai_app

Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

Subscribe to the podcast

Subscribe to Substack

Bitcoin soft-fork debates around CTV, CSFS, OP_CAT, and OP_VAULT keep stalling — and Misha Komarov of Allocinit argues you can emulate much of that covenant behavior with cryptography instead of changing consensus.
Misha joins Stephan to unpack Bitcoin PIPEs v2: a Witness Encryption design that locks a signing key under an NP statement so a valid zero-knowledge proof decrypts the key and produces an ordinary Schnorr spend. Bitcoin L1 only checks a normal signature.
They compare PIPEs v1 (Functional Encryption / richer post-covenants) with v2 (Witness Encryption / binary pre-covenants), ciphertext sizes from ~300 TB toward single-digit terabytes, DKG and 1-of-n setup assumptions, non-custodial vault and shared-pool use cases, contrasts with cosigner models like Sigbash, and how Allocinit’s Shielded Bitcoin design differs from Shielded CSV’s client-side validation approach — plus open cryptanalysis challenges and a path toward implementable code.
Timestamps:
00:00 — Intro: Misha & Bitcoin PIPEs v2
00:27 — Background: BitMessage to =nil;
01:31 — Soft-Fork Fatigue & Nice-to-Haves
03:24 — Emulate Opcodes Without Soft Forks
04:54 — Witness Encryption Unlocks Keys
06:01 — Witness Encryption vs Bitcoin Witness
09:00 — PIPEs v1 vs v2: FE to WE
11:39 — Ciphertext Size & Cost Trade-offs
15:28 — Vaults as the Unhappy Path
16:23 — PIPEs vs Sigbash Cosigner
18:05 — DKG Setup & 1-of-n Trust
21:11 — Shared Vaults & Lending Use Cases
23:24 — Beyond Canonical OP_VAULT
26:35 — Shielded Bitcoin vs Shielded CSV
32:17 — Self-Custody Peg-In and Peg-Out
37:14 — On-Chain Footprint Walkthrough
39:42 — Security Challenges & Code Roadmap
Links: 
https://x.com/nemothenoone

https://x.com/allocinitxyz

Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

Subscribe to the podcast

Subscribe to Substack

Almost every public Bitcoin node still runs Bitcoin Core. Brandon Black argues that client monoculture is a systemic risk — and that automation plus AI now make independent consensus implementations more realistic than skeptics assume.
Brandon (aka reardencode) returns to Stephan Livera Podcast for the first episode in a mini-series on non-Core Bitcoin implementations. He is shipping rbitcoin, a Rust full node aimed at server-side wallet and Lightning backends, with Electrum served in-process.
They dig into why rbitcoin has no UTXO set and no Core-style dbcache, how build-time differential testing differs from satd’s in-process libbitcoinconsensus dual-eval, BIP324 v2-only P2P, archival storage tradeoffs, LibreRelay-inspired policy, and what “production-ready™” means when every first-party line was written by AI under his prompting.
Brandon is blunt about maturity: the project is still early, contributors are welcome at rbitcoin.org, and listeners should treat alt clients as high-scrutiny infrastructure — not a drop-in replacement for Core tomorrow.
Timestamps:
00:00 — Intro: Brandon Black & rbitcoin
00:34 — Why Build rbitcoin
03:46 — Alt Clients Mini-Series
04:39 — Consensus Divergence Risk
05:53 — satd vs rbitcoin Paths
06:51 — Automation Makes Diversity Possible
08:29 — Build-Time Differential Testing
09:20 — Why Consensus Bugs Matter
10:55 — Lessons from btcd Divergences
13:35 — Target User: Wallet Backends
15:29 — Miners Leave the Non-Goal List
16:47 — Kill the dbcache Model
20:50 — Electrum In-Process
22:23 — Silent Payments & Tor
23:01 — BIP324 v2-Only P2P
23:46 — AI-Coded: Zero Human Lines
25:04 — Grok Plus Multi-Model Review
27:01 — DoS Rules & LibreRelay
28:34 — Upgrade Hooks
29:34 — Archive-Only, No 'UTXO Set'
31:50 — AI as the New Compiler
33:52 — Context Limits & Dependencies
38:06 — rust-bitcoin Relationship
39:08 — Wallet Infra Opportunity
40:00 — Still 10% a Joke
41:35 — Future of Client Diversity
44:50 — Outro: rbitcoin.org
Links: 
https://x.com/reardencode

https://rbitcoin.org/

Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

Subscribe to the podcast

Subscribe to Substack

Most Asian markets still make buying and saving Bitcoin painfully hard. James of Ârc argues the fix is not another protocol breakthrough — it is local founders shipping simple DCA and savings products market by market.
James joins me from Mirissa Beach, Sri Lanka, where Arc is partnering with Fulgur Ventures on a continuous Bitcoin accelerator. He is a former EY advisor and Playfair Capital investor who previously built with Alexander Mann (now Fulgur GP) and later sold Consequence, an early LLM-on-databases company.
The conversation covers why the program is continuous rather than a six- or twelve-week cohort, how to apply at arc.lk/Fulgur, why Sri Lanka ranks among his top-three country bets, the South Coast talent melting pot, funding DCA apps across Asia even where operators already exist, AI agents as Bitcoin users, and why Strike expanding should not scare local founders.
Timestamps:
00:00 — Intro: James of Ârc
00:35 — From Accenture to Venture Capital
02:13 — Building With Alex Singh
03:21 — Fed Up With Monkey JPEGs
05:10 — Ârc Fulgur Bitcoin Accelerator
06:35 — Continuous Program at Mirissa
07:34 — Two Paths Into Ârc Fulgur
10:13 — Why Sri Lanka?
12:02 — Top-Three Country Bet
12:23 — Whales, Leopards, Beach Hub
15:00 — South Coast Talent Melting Pot
18:36 — 34 Local Founders Already In
21:39 — Fund DCA Apps Across Asia
25:23 — AI Agents Will Use Bitcoin
28:18 — Room for Many Asian Operators
32:23 — Just Focus on Your Customer
32:39 — Apply Now
Links: 
https://x.com/James_of_Arc

https://x.com/FulgurVentures

https://arc.lk/

Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

Subscribe to the podcast

Subscribe to Substack

Mike Belshe, co-founder and CEO of BitGo, walks through how institutional Bitcoin custody actually works in 2026: qualified custody, self-custody co-signing, and why BitGo still centers a 2-of-3 model after pioneering P2SH multisig in 2013.
BitGo now operates as a US-regulated qualified custodian and public company, while still offering the same wallet stack individuals can run in self-custody mode. The conversation covers what “institutional security” means in practice — HSM-backed co-signing, open-source recovery paths, multi-jurisdictional key storage (including how BitGo moved WBTC when US regulation looked hostile), and why on-chain multisig still beats vendor-locked MPC for cold ops.
They also dig into the political and operational risks around large Bitcoin holdings: KYC and PII as honeypots, France tying names to amounts, the war on cash reaching Bitcoin, and whether an EO 6102-style confiscation risk still belongs in the threat model. On the institutional side, Belshe pushes back on multi-custodian setups that add failure modes, explains insurance limits versus the size of the Bitcoin market, and why splitting wallets matters after events like Bybit.
Timestamps
00:00 — Intro: Mike Belshe of BitGo
00:59 — Don't Lose Self-Custody's Power
05:41 — Retail Deserves Institutional Security
07:16 — Humans Are Terrible at OpSec
09:56 — 2-of-3 Protects Theft and Loss
14:35 — Retail Pays 160 Basis Points
19:22 — Why People Drift Toward Banks
20:35 — Self-Custody Is Never Trustless
23:39 — Why BitGo Sticks to 2-of-3
30:31 — A Public CEO Holds Zero at Home
31:27 — KYC Leaks Are Government Honeypots
39:28 — France Doxed Bitcoin Holdings
41:30 — War on Cash Reaches Bitcoin
43:45 — Multi-Jurisdictional Key Storage
45:29 — Executive Order 6102 Could Return
47:43 — Quantum-Resistant Wallets Today
49:27 — Multisig Beats MPC
53:33 — Splitting Custodians Adds Failures
58:29 — 2-of-2 MPC Can't Recover Loss
01:00:57 — $5–7B Insurance vs $1.6T Bitcoin
01:03:35 — Bybit Lost 10x by Not Splitting
01:05:21 — Multi-Institution vs Qualified Custody
Links: 
https://x.com/mikebelshe

https://x.com/bitgo

Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

Subscribe to the podcast

Subscribe to Substack